October 21, 2004
Martha Stewart: Helping fellowing inmates with microwave cooking
Martha Stewart is taking up her time in prison by helping her fellow inmates with their microwave recipes. Meanwhile, her lawyers are working on her appeal.
"She's making the best of what's necessarily a difficult situation," lawyer Walter Dellinger said on NBC's "Today." "There is no freedom. It's regimented. She has no privacy. They are subject to strip searches. But she's so resilient."Stewart is serving a five-month sentence at the minimum-security federal women's prison in Alderson, WV. Posted by mhking at October 21, 2004 08:49 PMthe appeals brief, made public Thursday, argues prosecutors and the trial judge kept the jury from understanding the difference.
"A barrage of pre-trial leaks and in-court accusations left the indelible impression that she was guilty of that offense," it says. "Tarring Stewart with an uncharged, highly inflammatory crime was fundamentally unfair."
Because inmates can only use a microwave to do their own cooking, Stewart is working with fellow prisoners to "come up with some creative recipes" based on the limited number of ingredients available at the prison commissary, Dellinger said.
"She has a group that is cooking," he said. "She is trying to figure out innovative ways to do microwave cooking which is all they have."